Heading further eastwards
After a long weekend with our son & daughter-in-law we headed off in an easterly direction, starting out while it was still fairly cool.
Our first stop was at Albi, a city with an impressive cathedral and a museum dedicated to the the city's most famous son, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.
There was a funeral taking place in the cathedral when we arrived so we spent an educational afternoon in the well air-conditioned museum. It was fascinating to see the preliminary sketches for the famous Toulouse-Lautrec posters. Many of the sketches are much more detailed than the posters but the essence of the character in the sketch is carried through into the poster using very few colours. Oh to have that kind of skill!
We did get to see inside the cathedral later in the day. Photography is not allowed inside the building so you will just have to take my word for it that it is much more ornate inside than out. I wouldn't plan a holiday around this one cathedral but if you are ever in the vicinity it is well worth a look.
We spent the night in a newly opened hotel an easy walk from the town centre and set off the following morning to drive up the valley of the river Tarn. The major roads all follow the high ground on either side of the valley but there is a minor road that follows the riverside for many kilometers that was very pleasant driving. The only tricky bits where the tunnels, unlit and very narrow. Fortunately we only met one other car actually in a tunnel and we managed to creep past each other without scraping the walls or each other but it was a very tight fit!
For many years the river Tarn has been a major obstacle on the route from Paris to the French Riviera and we wanted to see the solution to the problem. We where still some way from the town of Millau when we rounded a bend and got our first view of the tallest bridge in the world, higher than the Eiffel Tower.
The stats are impressive. According to Wikipedia the total length is 2,460 metres with a longest span of 342 metres and a clearance of 270 metres and a total height of 343 metres.
That is all just numbers. Go and stand underneath it and look up. It is awesome. In the town you can buy pictures of the bridge in clear sunshine with clouds underneath it. We drove half way across France to see this bridge and it was worth the effort. The town of Millau is working to adjust to being famous for its viaduct rather than for the worst traffic jams in France but we spent a leisurely afternoon and evening there before heading back towards Toulouse the following day.
Our first stop was at Albi, a city with an impressive cathedral and a museum dedicated to the the city's most famous son, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.There was a funeral taking place in the cathedral when we arrived so we spent an educational afternoon in the well air-conditioned museum. It was fascinating to see the preliminary sketches for the famous Toulouse-Lautrec posters. Many of the sketches are much more detailed than the posters but the essence of the character in the sketch is carried through into the poster using very few colours. Oh to have that kind of skill!
We did get to see inside the cathedral later in the day. Photography is not allowed inside the building so you will just have to take my word for it that it is much more ornate inside than out. I wouldn't plan a holiday around this one cathedral but if you are ever in the vicinity it is well worth a look.
We spent the night in a newly opened hotel an easy walk from the town centre and set off the following morning to drive up the valley of the river Tarn. The major roads all follow the high ground on either side of the valley but there is a minor road that follows the riverside for many kilometers that was very pleasant driving. The only tricky bits where the tunnels, unlit and very narrow. Fortunately we only met one other car actually in a tunnel and we managed to creep past each other without scraping the walls or each other but it was a very tight fit!
For many years the river Tarn has been a major obstacle on the route from Paris to the French Riviera and we wanted to see the solution to the problem. We where still some way from the town of Millau when we rounded a bend and got our first view of the tallest bridge in the world, higher than the Eiffel Tower.The stats are impressive. According to Wikipedia the total length is 2,460 metres with a longest span of 342 metres and a clearance of 270 metres and a total height of 343 metres.
That is all just numbers. Go and stand underneath it and look up. It is awesome. In the town you can buy pictures of the bridge in clear sunshine with clouds underneath it. We drove half way across France to see this bridge and it was worth the effort. The town of Millau is working to adjust to being famous for its viaduct rather than for the worst traffic jams in France but we spent a leisurely afternoon and evening there before heading back towards Toulouse the following day.
posted by Richard Galle at 2:31 pm
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